Finding Magic

I spend my days in search of and finding magic. I can take the tiniest thing and turn it into something wondrous, I love that about me. Armed with my camera, I try to capture my world and post it for all who are interested.

Feelings of Failure

I was given a chance to do something new, exciting and nerve racking and that was to come as an "honored" guest photographer for a dance benefit and in my eyes, I failed the task. The minute I walked into the badly lit theatre, I knew I was in trouble. I took a few test shots from different locations and I was unable to get anything of significance. I am a dancer so, I love watching dance but this was absolutely the worst time I have ever had watching a dance performance and by the time the show ended, I had aged 20 years. I am laughing now but that night, I felt so defeated. Don't get me wrong, I loved the dances but with every click a feeling of despair hang over my head, some how I knew I wasn't living up to my expectations. I wanted to blame it on the recently purchased camera but no, I think it was just my skill level, and my son who is a photographer and has done many photo shoots tried to make me feel better by telling me that this was a great thing and that it would help me to grow, but, I was inconsolable until I found an email that explained to the company director that the lighting would be a problem but I would come and try to capture something. In the end, the dancers were very appreciative of the photos and I thanked them and tried to move forward. You see, I am out of practice when it comes to failure and that is because I am not taking any chances, which is not a good thing. In order to stay in the game called life, I need to continue to put myself out there to learn new things, move out of my comfort zone, be daring, embrace new challenges and learn from my not so successful ventures. By doing this, I will always be a winner.

Trying to Capture My Flow on Film

These days, when I leave home, I always have my camera with me. Most of the time I have my little digital in my purse and my 35mm film camera around my neck. I have enjoyed taking photos since I was sixteen but lately if I leave my 35mm, I feel like an appendage is missing, it has become part of me, an extension of me, a third eye hanging from my body. This strong attachment has occurred over the last two years or, ever since I joined facebook. I wanted to show people who I am so I started taking my cameras everywhere to try and capture what I think is a magical life, on film and digital. In trying to capture my life, my flow, I have really grown to love this medium of expression. I am always looking for pictures that explain the magical world that I live in. Recently I spent time sitting on a beach that was composed of sea glass, and I wanted let people on my page see what I saw although nothing beats seeing it with your naked eye. In the beginning I used my camera and video to show the magical space I call home and then I moved out and about to show my bay area playground and how it is possible to have fun doing the simple things in life. I am really starting to fancy myself as a photographer and people have suggested that I take some classes, I thought about it and decided against it. I am not interested in being trained to see the world through some teacher's eyes. I want the compositions to be my own and not that of the teacher. People say that you should learn the rules and techniques and then you can stray from them and do your own thing but for me that doesn't make sense, I am having fun doing what I am doing and being graded or critiqued in a classroom will probably not bring me much joy. So, I will continue to try and capture my world and my joy on film on my own.

The New Dreadlock Generation

The new dreadlock generation are doing a little bit too much in the way of trying to dictate what our locs should look like and how we should care for them. They show blatant disregard for those who have come before them. Back in the day they referred to us as dirty and nasty and it turns out that they still do the same thing in the year 2010. They exhibit photos of rastas and place them under a category entitled "neglect," and they call it nasty because of the way it looks and many post comments, like, "nasty, lol, I'm glad that is not on my head," and they call it dirty because they don't like the way it looks. I know that this goes both ways because an older brotha just told me that he calls this new loc generation, "pasta rastas," because they are plastic, they lack culture, and because of their tiny uniformed spaghetti one size and all the same length hair." So, they are also being judged but as, a backlash because they are putting themselves up as judge and jury when it comes to this ancient powerful hair. Since this hair has been taken over by the masses, they have diluted some of the powerful energy that can be manifested through wearing locs. They are an antennae to the spirit world and there used to be a definite initiation period. As they grew with little interference other then, sun, water and love, it reached a stage when you knew it needed to simmer and you donned your crown that you learned to crochet, and then, like a caterpillar creating and entering its cocoon, you emerged a butterfly. That was the magic of growing locs. I no longer feel that magic with this new dreadlock generation, it is just a hairstyle and when they post blogs concerning their hair journeys, they get caught up in which products to use because, for many of the new locked masses, this was not considered a relevant style until they could take it into the shop and until that had products to plaster on them. It had to become profitable for the masses to jump on the bandwagon. So where is the magic, where has it gone?The mainstream masses have taken over this ancient powerful hair and that means that it has come down from the mountain tops and been dragged into the mainstream where it diluted and mixed with all manners of stuff and its meaning and magic has been wiped away for the masses but, there are still those on the mountain tops that are connecting to the cosmos through there powerful locked antennae!

Museums

I am having a fun and interesting summer, the only thing missing is more sunshine. I have memberships to most of the main museums in the bay area and I have for some time so why is it that almost every time I walk into a museum there is some pin head, treating me as though I have just discovered that these places exist, and even though I am a member, they seem to want to ignore that fact. If they are not running up to me to check and make sure that I didn't enter without paying, they are trying to explain things to me as if they are speaking to a two year old. What the hell is this about, and tell me how I could possibly enter without paying? I want to toot my own horn, I stand out in a crowd so, how could I possibly squeak by guards? This has happened in every one of the museums and now, I am tired and poised to take down the next jackass that steps to me, because you see, I realize that this is a Black thing, and the perpetrators are both white and Black. For some ignorant reason, they have it in their heads that I am some kind of intruder so, whenever I enter a museum they feel the need to approach me to see what I am doing and how did I get in the building. I have had security guards run across the room to check to see if I had indeed paid, one security guard told me that I was in the European art section and that the African American art was on the other side. These two guards were both Black, wtf!!! I have been followed around as if I am going to steal the art, I have had a white worker make a big scene by welcoming us to the museum and telling us that he was there to answer any of our questions because of course this had to be our first time and seeing that it was Martin Luther King's birthday the day before, he felt compelled to do this. To the inexperienced eye and ear maybe this would have come off as something positive but in reality it came off as trying to accent the fact that we were obviously strangers in a strange land, museum land. Now we are reporting people for bad behavior and the people in charge appear to be embarrassed at what their employees are doing. I have decided that I have to take these ignorant people down by embarrassing them because after all this is what they are attempting to do to me. Well there is still two weeks before summer officially ends and I plan to keep going to visit my museums so, I will keep you posted.

Individualist- simple rhymes

I'm an individualist
and I mean no harm to thee
I simply live my life for me
they say we live many lives
but this is the only one I can see
so let me be
a slow growing tree
who loves her daily cup of tea
and praying by the sea
for I mean no harm to thee
this is my key
thereby filling my life with harmony
they never taught this to me
at the university
Individualist, that's me
you may agree or disagree
but this is not a plea
it's a decree
I mean no harm to thee
not to be you, for this is my life
I simply choose to be me
flowing free
here and beyond
into
infinity

What's Been Missing

Yesterday I had such a wonderful time at Hummingbird cottage for the very reason that it was the first time in about two years that I had a guest in the cafe. I think I am spending far too much time alone and although I am told that in several of my past lives, I was a monk, and that much of my life was spent in isolation in prayer and meditation, being alone too much bugs the crap out of me in this life time. I love seeing the faces of my visitors when I open the door to my magical jewel box of a dwelling. I know that it is a special place that I have filled with all sorts of trinkets, talismans, shells, bones, colors, sounds, fragrances, and more but will my guest get it? It turns out that when I follow my intuition as to whom I invite to my cottage, I am always on point because they are magical beings also and can totally enjoy what I have created.

One Hundred Years

I have always been considered a slow bloomer
and that is because I plan to be a centenarian
and therefore my life flow is that of a tree
no speed for me
I am a little over half way there
and I am just beginning to hit my stride
I have cracked myself wide open and allowed
all forms of magic to pour out
while many around are racing to their ending
I am content to take my time
I am trying to slow down time
in an attempt to wallow in every moment
I gather crystals, herbs, healers, mountains, beaches, bones and stones
I wrap myself in many colors and surround myself in sound
all of these talismans are part of my personal alchemy
and they help me to remain on this earth plane
growing free and slowly like a beautiful tree
unfurling my limbs toward one hundred

I Define My Reality

There are way too many people in the world that will try to define your reality for you if you let them and I have no intention of letting them do that to me. People will assume and define your reality by race, gender, class, nationality, age and any other type of group that they can squeeze you into. There is baggage attached to all of these classifications but I am not one to take on other peoples limitations. Just because you feel restricted by race or gender, do not try to force this restriction on me. The other day somebody was talking to me about age and the reality of one person dying and leaving the other behind, in the case of a couple, I heard her concern but frankly speaking, it is not my concern. My concern is that my honey and I live our lives to the hilt! I care and put my attention on living, not on dying. I do not want to waste our precious time here on earth worrying about leaving. Too many people try to put their crap on you, guess what, you will be the one to suffer behind this kind of thinking, not me, because I refuse to own it, no thank you, I fly above all of this low level thinking.

Monique As the Voice of Reason

You know that living my life by the standards of another goes against my grain and the idea of taking relationship advise from Monique is a utterly ridiculous notion as far as I am concerned. I just finished listening to a video from the Monique show on BET and she brought a couple on who she fully endorsed to tell sistahs that they needed to submit, surrender to their king, and she proceeded to use crude language explaining how she thought she had a male sexual organ and she wanted to control everything and I thought, what the blank am I listening to? Are these sistahs serious, this is 2010 and slavery officially ended in 1864-65 and these sistahs have willingly sold themselves back into slavery and they are asking the masses of sistahs to join them in their bondage. Are Black women really going to sell themselves, mind, body and soul in order to have a so called man/master? What price are you willing to pay in order to have this type of , in my opinion, worthless male? Now I know that some jackass will accuse me of being a man hater, or they might even call me a lesbian, but the truth of the matter is that I learned how powerful I am as an individual when I was in my mid-twenties and I used my power to create the life that I wanted, the life that I deserved. I have a loving husband of thirty-two years and we have never entertained the notion of dominance over one another. We both know and love each other's nature and would never insist that the other douse their light in order for the other to shine brighter because, what happens is, you dull the whole relationship and in the end, you both end up as lesser people.

Time to Get My Mojo Working

Now that I have been to the mountain and received some very important messages, it is time to get my mojo working. It seems that I have been resting on my laurels for far too long and it is time to move. I have gone out and gathered energy now I have to use it to create again. I have a painting that has been waiting for me for a year and everyday I walk by and look at it, it stares back at me, it is me looking and wondering about me. Why the long hold up what the frick is going on with me? I sat in that beach chair on the mountain for four hours and soaked up some much needed magnetic feminine/masculine energy. My husband and I have rededicated ourselves to becoming renaissance people and that requires hard work, consistency and vitality. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by going forward with our art, music, language, writing, reading, studying the ancient Nile Valley civilizations, and, I have a week to decide if I am going back to dance.

Wonder Twin Powers......Activate

What this mini vacation was really all about was the fact that I have loved Charles for 32 years and it was our anniversary celebration. Whenever we head out on a trip we say," wonder twin powers activate" because we double our power that way and no one messes with us. I don't really like the kissing picture because I am holding the camera and I am to close, so my face looks too big and the pursed lips are a little too corny but I decided to post it anyway because we have the magical waterfall behind us. I know that it is not obvious but, that is my hand on the left and his is on the right and the rings are hematite and therefore, magnetic so, when we hold hands, they bond together, now, how cool is that! So here is to 32 more years of wonder twin spirit power. Activate!!

Mt. Shasta

I returned home from our mini vacation last Sunday and I am ready to go again because seven or was it eight days just isn't enough and it is taking me a week to unpack. We had so much fun with one another, one of the coolest things happened on this trip, we visited the cafe from the famous movie, at least to me it was famous, Bagdad Cafe. I was so excited that I actually could not stop smiling while I snapped pictures and drank lemonade. Then it was on to Las Vegas and our favorite hotel, Bellagio, wow, I am missing the yummy dinners that I had there. We love Bellagio and we always have a fabulous room on the upper floors with a full lake view and it is important for me to have a room with a view of the strip. We were there for three days of walking around and seeing the sights and we even got to see the Musical Play, "The Lion King," and it was alright but I would have preferred to see a Cirque Du Soleil production. We spent the last three days of our trip in the beautiful mystical Mt. Shasta City which is at the foot of the awe inspiring Mt. Shasta. From the minute the mountain comes into view from highway 5, you can't take your eyes off of it, never mind that it dominates the landscape, it is magical. Mt. Shasta is a magnetic vortex that summons people from all over the world and they come in droves to walk her/his beautiful slopes. The mountain is surrounded in mystery from, UFO's to Lemurians living in a city inside the mountain. There are stories about ascended masters who have appeared on the mountain and little people who have lead campers to their city on the mountain. We have seen strange lights hovering over the top of the mountain at night and the magnificent clouds formations that form over the mountain. The energy of the Mt. Shasta affects all of the surrounding area for miles. There are waterfalls with entities around them and lava tubes that are portals for inter-dimensional travel. Just spending time in the natural beauty of this powerful area is priceless. Mt. Shasta city is the perfect place to pick a personal crystal and to get a reading on the crystal itself in order to find out why this particular crystal attracted you to it. All in all, it was a wonder filled trip and the mountain informed me that I need to visit her at least once year if not twice because she has knowledge to pass to me so, I will return as soon as possible.

It Takes a Village.....Not!

What I am about to say should not come as a shock because I have made it clear that I am an individualist, so when I say that I never liked the saying "It takes a village to raise a child," you should say, "of course, that is what I would expect you to say." The truth of the matter is that the saying makes my flesh crawl because it takes the responsibility away from the parents and gives it to the group, the collective. Recently my granddaughter was removed from her school about a month before the official end of of the school year and ever since then, when my daughter runs into parents from the school they ask her for an explanation as to why she did this, as if she owes them anything. They try to tell her that she went about it in the wrong way and that she should take their approach and speak to the teacher or at least make them understand her problem with the school. They all seem to feel that she owes the school an acceptable explanation and they are waiting to hear something that will satisfy their collective conscience. They have suggested that it is the problem of the parents and not of my granddaughter and that my daughter, her parent, has some how taken their child, my granddaughter from the school against her will. They think that they know what is best for her and they feel like one of their children has been taken away from the control of the collective or the village if you will. The village knows what is best for this child and what is best is that she, like each of their own children, learns to grin and bear the below standard education that is being doled out to her. If this school is good enough for their children, it is good enough for her because she is a part of the village, the collective and every Black child is expected to have the same experience or else, how will she feel at home in the village? I don't know about anyone else but, one of the reasons I had children is so I could teach them my values and standards and in the end to teach them to always live by their own values and standards and not that of the village, the collective. The village has voiced its unsolicited opinions to my daughter but she made her decision almost a month ago and they will have to live with it because in the end, it is hers and her husband's sole responsibility to raise their daughter.

My Reality

I am always talking about creating my own reality but it is just as important, if not more, to consciously create my virtual reality also. I recently met with one of my facebook friends in the real world and she was fantastic and we had so much fun laughing, talking and having tea and sandwiches at a lovely english style tea room. By managing my facebook page and rejecting most of the requests that come through and dumping all of the false prophets, I have a pretty cool eclectic group of friends, people that I would love to meet in the real world. I keep my numbers low and manageable and try to touch bases with all of the people or at least I have actually communicated with them at some point and they have written back. When I find someone that has never said anything to me, especially if they have over a thousand friends, I drop them because I know that there is nothing special about me remaining on this person's friend list. I am excited to get an opportunity to meet them in the real world and if that doesn't go well, I drop them from my friends list because in reality, I only want facebook friends that I would actually want to know in the world of the real!

Drummers

Colonized Women, are You Kidding Me!

I read something that a self-identified slave wrote yesterday, she used the term "colonized women all over the planet," and this struck me as a crazy statement. This is a presumption on her part. I said it once and I will say it again, If you want and choose to identify yourself as a slave and to act accordingly, that is on you but do not assume that all women want to join or be forced into this mindset or sense of life. I am stating that I am free to choose my life and how I want to live it and I will not attempt to force you to be free . I will only state what is obvious to me and that is, that many people are laboring and living under antiquated mind sets while the world has moved on.

Family

Many people complain about all of the changes for the worst on facebook but, for me, it has been a wonderful adventure, because it has enabled me to find known and unknown family members and that is beyond cool. This week, I finally connected with my aunt who is married to my father's brother and whom I have only met once in my life. I also connected with a first cousin who I have not seen since she was two. I also met for the first time, my second cousins and this is really cool, their grandfather and my grandfather are brothers and now we have an opportunity to get to know one another. For decades, I have felt like a person cut off from my family roots and if it wasn't for this social network, I doubt that I would have been able to find and connect with these family members in this lifetime, so for me, facebook has been life altering.

Sunshine blue skies

Having Pen Pals is so Cool

Last week was filled with disturbing encounters, the kind that outside of facebook, would never enter my Queendom so, It was lovely to receive letters from two of my pen pals, that by the way, I met on facebook. it was wonderful to read their letters and to feel that positive connection. We don't have to have the same ideas and positions on everything, and that is the way it should be but, on the essentials we agree.

This is Not a Mellow Post

This is my spot for a mental moment of Zen, aahh, breath in breath out. Okay on to the topic at hand, this week I encountered a couple of disturbing African American women but one in particular was a little more hateful. Her behavior made me refer back to Erykah Badu's new video in which she tries to expose "group think," which I have to say is a major problem with most of the world but many Black folks preach the virtues of having one mind as African people, and so far, this really has not worked to uplift the majority of Black folks in this country. As a Black woman these two women were laboring under the false illusion that I, as an individual, am not allowed to think about myself and my life without that being a problem for the collective, the majority of Black people. The act of me claiming my intrinsic right to be an individualist, to live by my own standards and not the standards and choices of the group sent them over the top and they began to hurl venom in an attempt to intimidate and ridicule me back into the role as a sheeple(sheep+people), you get it! They unleashed all of their ugliness and in the end, I dropped the sistah who's page this was happening on, even though I like her but she had some really toxic followers. The craziest of the two women kept talking about the "rabid individualist," and all of the horrors they inflict on the world, which is a ridiculous notion to me. Armies and groups of mindless followers are the real destructors and evil doers on the planet. The true individualist, I am not talking about a leader who is really just a follower because he needs the group in order to maintain his position, I am talking about the true individualist who would never demand or use force on another individual in order to make them bend to her/his will. The true individualist is out there living their life by their own terms and flies on their own wings, and never rides on the backs of others. The true individualist never says because you made it, you are under obligation to give me some of what you have achieved on your own. Collectivist always claim that the individualist owes them for their success. They seriously believe that the group helped this person achieve what they have and therefore, they should give back. What a croak of shit, why would anyone help someone else achieve greatness or to reach higher heights and not do that for themselves. Give back, wtf have you given to them, no really, I would like that question answered because this is always the claim of the collective. Don't get me wrong, people can help people and belong to collectives but, it has to be by choice not force. In the end this toxic woman who was a self righteous homophobe, and intolerant of any opinion different from hers, wrapped in African garb while pretending to be a "conscious rasta raw foodie sistah," was just a jackass in sheep's clothing!

I Send All Negative Energy Back to Its Source

Always Creating Magic

"You must have been a genie in a former life," is what sistah Cheree's posting under one of my pictures said, and , I would have to agree because some how I came into this life knowing magic. As a little girl, I knew that I could and did create magic in my daily life growing up in the projects, which in no way resembled the projects of today except the fact that Black folks lived there. I always find a way to create something wonderful to combat the mundane existence that is always lurking around the perimeter of the magic circle that I have casted to keep my treasured lush life from having too much contact with that other world. I am always coming up with new ways to expand my creative consciousness and this keeps me happy and for the most part positive about my life. I read something important tonight in the book, "Manifest Your Desires." The quote is, "Those who are mostly observers thrive in good times but suffer in bad times because what they are observing is already vibrating, and as they observe it, they include it in their vibrational countenance; and as they include it, the Universe accepts that as their point of attraction--and gives them more of the essence of it. So, for an observer, the better it gets, the better it gets; or the worse it gets, the worse it gets. However, one who is a visionary thrives in all times." So, note to self, keep my eyes and heart on my magical world and the mundane will fall away and I will cast my magic as far and as wide as my imagination reaches.

Why is this kid touching my Goat?

Creating Magic

I love roaming the lands looking for power spots to create our magic. My consort and I find the coolest places and then we work our magic and find such joy in what we are able to conjure up. The longer we stay on this planet, the bolder we become. A lot of the things that we have done for three decades, we were lucky if we ran into any other Black folks but now, what were fringe activities or just plain taboo in the Black community, like the so called "New Age" movement, has now become very hip and almost mainstream, huh, I really don't know how to feel about that, I tend to want to run away from anything that is becoming or has become mainstream. What I do know is that, the fad will run its course and the collective will move on to the next hip thing and the true authentic souls will emerge, standing in their own individual power.

Striking a Pose in the Rain

Thrift Shopping

There is no better shopping than, thrift shopping because, I am freed from the control of the fashion industry and I have total control of how I want to clothe myself. I really don't care what they say is in style, I want to wear what I want to wear. A few years ago I started sewing just so I could control my look and not be a slave to their whims. I am free to create my look. This is why I have always loved the Harajuku kids(at least that is what I call them) in Japan because, they created and continue to create their own fashion and as a result, the fashion industry is jocking them and stealing their looks and claiming that they took the kids ideas, their fashion sense and made it better. Don't get me wrong, I love looking at fashion books and sometimes magazines but, I don't want to look like the people in the books, I want to look like Talibah. I have my own ideas and thrift shops allow me to construct my fashion style. I take a little bit of this and a one of those and I piece together something creative that may or may not reflect anything that is going on in fashion today. Oh yes, I do not share the locations of my favorite stores.

Never Be Afraid to Stand Alone

Most people that I encounter are so afraid to go against the group, the mob, the community, the race, the gender but as a true individualist, you have to know that most of the time you will stand alone. In the past few days everybody is buzzing about Erykah Badu's new video and what concerns them is her nudity but what is really exciting is her declaration to not be controlled by the collective and their fear tactics. There is always a understanding that in standing up as an individualist, the collective mob may view you as a threat and try to take you out, to assassinate you physically or try character assassination like they did to Michael Jackson. Most people I encounter are members of the collective and rarely stray from the borg mind, they talk the same, dress the same, listen to the same music, they all embrace the same thing at the same time and they all believe that they are individuals at the same time as a group. What I am saying is that there are a lot of people who are deciding as a group to jump on the individualist bandwagon by claiming that this is who they have been all the time but once again it is actually the group mind deciding that it will claim individuality the way that they claimed spirituality or wearing locs. I have been an individualist for five decades and when I looked around while doing a full moon ritual, I didn't see any other Black folks. Black folks have been some of the worst collectivist because very often diversity has been ridiculed! When my children had locs thirty years ago, Black people were brutal and tried to make our lives miserable but they could not shake me or my family members because we reject the collective mindset. But now, the collective has embraced dreadlocks as an official style and they have stripped away the uniqueness and have opted for a unified look, thin and all the same length, tamed and whipped into a hairstyle and this is cool as long as you do not try to ridicule those that choose to leave their dreadlocks to grow freely in all types of varying shapes and sizes. Dreadlocks as metaphor for life, I am growing freely unimpeded by the collective mind.

Always Ready to Strike a Pose

Nature Speaks

Nature is my great teacher! I am not a religious person at all. By spending time in nature, I have experienced the sacred holiness of life and nature has healed me at the worst of times in my life so I know her power. The day my father died, I went to my favorite beach and climb on rocks that protruded quite far into the ocean. I sat there with my sweetie and a few crabs running over the rocks and cried. I let the healing power of Yemonja wash over me and felt so much better when I left. When my mom died and I was feeling very troubled about her passing, I was out on the bay marshlands in Palo Alto and asked a question and suddenly out of nowhere, a huge flock of birds few all around me and brushed pass my body but did not hurt me and I had my answer. I used to plant quartz crystals all around San Francisco in nature spots. I planted crystals on twin peaks and then laid my body on the bosom of Pacha mama for a healing. I love going to Muir Woods where me and tree can exchange energy, we both exhale and then breathe each other in and we are nurtured.

Supercharged

The hippie in me has been supercharged and now, I am ready for spring! I can't wait to get out in my garden this weekend and start beautifying everything. I need to buy lots of annuals to put in pots all around Hummingbird Cottage. I absolutely loved the gardens at the SchoolHouse compound of which Jasmine Cottage is a part. The owner Karen Gray is a Landscape architect and her gardens were so perfect and lush. I really want to make my gardens more inviting and with the help of the new gardener that I hired, he can do the hard work and I can do the fun stuff.

Renewal

The last four days have been so wonderful and they have truly renewed my spirit. I so needed that trip. It was a relaxing and inspiring retreat for my honey and I. There was nothing that we needed to do, we could just hang out in the beautiful garden at Jasmine cottage where we stayed or venture out to the beautiful lush country, rolling hills, forests, beaches, bays and lagoons. Wild life was in abundance, deer crossed our path, ospreys building nests flying back and forth overhead, even a bob cat running right across the road . I played my guitar in the garden while basking in the morning sunlight. I even danced in the garden to the celtic music. The cottage only had two cds, Beethoven and a celtic music. Everything was perfect, from the fresh flowers in the vase on the table to the wood burning stove. My home, Hummingbird cottage is so pretty that I had not bothered to rent a cottage for five years but, there are many other reasons to rent a cottage, and renting a place in paradise is a great reason. It was so needed, to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life and to slow my pace down.

Spring Time

My favorite time of the year will arrive this week, yes, it is spring equinox time and once again the days will be longer than the nights. I love going to a special place to celebrate the holy days and really mark them in some ritualistic way. So this year, we are renting a cottage for a few days in a place that is known for its wildflowers and I can't wait to be there. It is going to be lovely and very restful!

Sassy Fashionista

Funky fresh dressed to impress and Boris is ready to party!

Om Mani Padme Hum

I own sixty Buddhas and one day while purchasing four, I had an encounter with a Chinese woman. She was my cashier and she told me that she was Buddhist and asked me why I buy them all the times. And suddenly, the words came out of my mouth, "I was a Buddhist monk in a past life," I said softly and waited for her response. She grabbed herself and said, "I got goose bumps, I know it is true!" She asked about my dreams and told me to pay close attention to them. So there it is, I was a monk. In this lifetime, I am not a Buddhist but it feels natural to live surrounded by beautiful images of Buddha, my home is a temple. Om mani padme hum!

Letter Writing

One of the best things that I did for myself/my spirit so far this year is, to come together with five other like spirited sistahs as pen pals. Now my already fabulous life has been made more lush by the simple delight of writing personal letters and receiving wonderful multi-layered creative letters, cards and artwork in return. By participating in this simple but powerful ritual, my life has expanded ten fold. We are, all of us, magicians in the act of creating wonder filled lives for ourselves and for all of those who come who bask in our energy. To the mundane eye, letter writing can seem like a tired old fashioned practice but to wise women, it has become an act of power.

Spinning Straw into Gold

I am creating a wonderful life day by day and moment by moment. We plan longer and more elaborate trips maybe twice a year, but it is the little outings and the magic that I am able to create on a daily basis that makes my life worth living. I want to keep this present in my mind, I am responsible for keeping my life fabulous. Often times it feels like I am an alchemist when it comes to my life, I spin straw into a golden life.

It's All Me

I am an alchemist when it comes to creating outfits to wear, I spin flyness from bones, crystals, candles and frankincense. I am so serious because I create my fits as I go and if you looked in my closet, you wouldn't see how I "do what I do." It is magical and I continually surprise myself and my family. This week alone, I have created some fabulous looks. People often ask me where I come from because they would like know that my flyness is attached to some other country because, this certainly can't be an american thing. I have had people get very disappointed when I said, "San Francisco," they said, "no, I mean before that, where are you originally from?" I tell them, that I was born in Texas but arrived in San Francisco when I was three and then, they get very disappointed, they exhale deeply and walk away. I am left feeling a little weird, as if they thought I was some kind of fake because I was not actually from some exotic country. I really didn't know what to tell them but one day it came to me. "It's all me," is my simple answer. This is my personal alchemy, my magic, it is not attributed to any tribe, group, country, it is all me.

A Tea Shop Mystery

Last Sunday, I went to my first gathering of the Tearoom book club and it was so much fun. The group is reading a series called A Tea Shop Mystery and there are I think, nine books in total although I do believe that a new one is coming out in March. The author is Laura Childs and her books are very light fun reading. Her main character owns a teashop and she is an amateur detective who solves murder mysteries. The fun is that the books are pack full of descriptions of great teas and yummy recipes and in our book club meeting/gathering, we get to sample many of the teas and treats from our stories. In reading these books, I will find out more about teas and tearoom rituals and culture so I will not seem such a neophyte when I go to English style tearooms.

Boris

Simple Delights

Warm sunshine on my face is one of the simple delights in my life, and now I have started a photo journal/plog that highlights my life as a woman of leisure. I am a magician creating a lush life for myself and my family. In photos, I hope to tell the story of how it is the simple things that weaves the joyous, blissful and exciting fabric which is my life.

Reading my pen pal's letter

City Life

Snail Mail

There is something so magical about getting a hand written letter in the mail and this experience simply cannot be matched with email. Email is cool but it only involves couple of my senses and that is sight and touch but when it comes to a handwritten letter, I can see, touch, hear, smell and even taste it if I am so inclined. Reading an email is a kind of sterile endeavor because my computer in surrounded by papers and printers and it is in the middle of my kitchen which by the way , is the most uninteresting room in my cottage(more about that in the future). But when I receive a letter in the mail from one of my pen pals, I immediately want to set the scene for a lush reading of the magic contained inside. All of my victorian age films come to mind and I make a pot of tea, light the fireplace and curl up in a comfortable seat to enhance the total experience of following the adventures of all of my friends that have taken the time out to put pen to paper. I love the feel of the fancy stationary or the beauty captured on a card hand picked for me, I love the sound of turning pages, and the smell of wonder paper. It is truly a wonder filled experience and it should never die as an art/creative form of expression.

Tutankhamun

We finally made it to the Tutankhamun exhibit at the Deyoung Museum in San Francisco and it was fabulous!! The place was packed but at least we did not have to wait in any lines due to our membership which enabled us to enter in the VIP line which you know I loved. That entrance is worth the price of the membership. Once we were inside, it was butt to butt with people but I just walked to the front of every display and took long looks at everything. I really felt a sense of entitlement after all, these are our ancestors. Sometimes, if my children were around, I would start to kick some knowledge to them for all who were in listening distance. I would say that most of the people in the exhibit did not have a clue and most of them walked around with those darn digital recorders to their ears hoping to gain some understanding.